M Azshara is the first boss in awhile that is literally “impossible” without mods. For the easiest mechanic of the fight. I don’t have an issue with the decrees existing in the game, or how they play out WITH the WA, but the mechanic is the first mechanic in YEARS that needs a WA for any sort of consistency since you cannot reliably do them otherwise. If there was a 5 second window of the decrees going out and not being able to “do” them, maybe it could work, but having all 3 solo soaks go to the same marker because they have no time doesn’t sound pleasant.
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Sorry. When Blizzard makes the game THIS easy, to where even a mouse could hit 120 and get lucky with TF 430 gear, stuff like this HAS to exist.
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I USE timers, but 99% of them I ignore after like 5-10 pulls. On our Azshara prog the only timer I remotely pay attention to is when bombs are soon-ish so I remember to move my imp. Everything in like phase 1 though? It is so scripted that I don’t look at timers at all because I know after I do my opener and shoot 2 shadowbolts and refresh dots the hulk spawns. Then a beam. Then some soaks at which point the bosses move in LoS of each other. Etc. Etc.
Chances are I will eventually stop looking for bomb timers, but we spent too many nights not getting that far it is still a somewhat “fresh” mechanic.
I honestly disagree with this
Coming from BC and having raided Heroic since Late MoP (with various levels of raiding before then) I hated having the stop watches on my desk that I tailored to each fight we did so I could keep track of mechanics. It was awful being responsible for call outs prior to the clocks being in the screen. DBM still allows me to make the call outs and I don’t have to set it myself. Furthermore, the encounters are leaps and bounds superior to what we had in Vanilla days where mechanics didn’t exist and most bosses were target dummies that hit back. Raiding now feels so much more rewarding than raiding then (been raiding since BC) because the encounters are still challenging regardless of addons being more common.
A prime example of addons not making the fight easier is Mekkatorque. He stopped us for quite a while because despite the fact we had DBM, it didn’t help us from his specific mechanic. In fact, many fights might tell you what’s coming up but you still have to perform correctly otherwise you will struggle or fail your team.
I’ve been using addons since nearly the beginning. DBM and BigWigs have improved the raiding scene to make it better than it was in the past. Other games get away with not needing addons, but I imagine they’d make them better. I also imagine someone is still doing the call outs, which is a job I don’t envy for anyone that needs to keep timers. So I embrace DBM and it’s ilk.
As far as people’s complaints about IO, there will always be a way to measure someone else. If we didn’t have a systematic one like IO, people would use the information that is public to see what dungeons people have done in time with what affixes and invite based on that. It used to be ilvl but we can’t do that anymore because everyone that plays this game has a heightened ilvl due to Blizzard showering everyone with gear, so there has to be a way to gauge if a player is going to be able to run the dungeon at the level you are requesting. There is no getting away from that.
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oh for sure. once you get a feel of the fight, the reliance on times isn’t as critical.
the first few azshara nights, I was watching those timers like a hawk. Now I hardly glance at them. (well, for the parts we have down at least. haven’t killed her yet, and I’m sure as we move into new phases I’ll be back to watching them much more closely).
yea. idk. I think M. Azshara is a great example of a boss that was created with the assumption that everyone would have WAs.
I can’t imagine a world in which you’d have a full raid of people able to, within 5 seconds, react to three different decrees and get to the right spot.
maybe in the top top top % of raiders? but I don’t think even then.
Of course. During progression everyone stacks on Behemoth, like, the entire raid. I mean sure now you either immunity or go eff off and die but he used to stack. And I mean if melee are soaking charge, everyone is soaking it, so yeah, he soaked with everybody else. He cut coral, soaked bubbles, spread for fluid, interrupted. He used to miss rallys occasionally, which in retrospect I think may have been due to not having timers.
I use and love addons. Please don’t go looking for me to make the argument that they don’t make you better at the game. But for a sufficiently skilled player, you can get away without them, though I think you’d pretty much always be better with them. And yeah, you get some ancillary benefit from them when the raid is using them. Better leadership is an effectiveness multiplier, and you could argue for a kind of ‘herd immunity’. But with how few people actually hate addons so much they do anything they can to play without them, I think there are enough ‘addon-free’ slots out there for them to fill without ruining raids.
The difference between having mods and not having them is like the difference between day and night.
You simply can’t do anything these days without several need to haves that everyone just expects you to have. That’s not an opinion that’s a fact.
Which is an unhealthy way to design things.
But people will defend them to their dying breath.
Nah, I don’t think it’s all that different from a situation you would run into in M+. The main thing that breaks that mechanic is the solo soaks. You have to get to them immediately and if multiple people go for the same one, I mean that’s it, you’re wiping from unsoaked orb or someone is dying from sanction. Even a few seconds would open up the possibility for people to recognize they have solo soak, and then call their markers just like you would interrupts in M+.
It’d be a moderately difficult mechanic imo, and if it lands on your derpo (everyone’s got one, no matter how high you go it seems) you’re probably screwed, no different than if he got shrunk on Mekka. But I think it becomes realistically doable without requiring a computer to literally figure out and make assignments for you at that point.
Yes, I’m not stating it’s impossible (or if I was, I will correct that now). But raiding in prog Mythic without addons just moves some of the burden to the other raiders.
I’m sure if someone had the mind of a computer they wouldn’t need addons. Addons only make information easier to see/hear as it prioritizes and puts emphasis on certain things.
And the person you are mentioning is probably the outlier. It’s like the example I gave about ordering off a menu in a dimly lit restaurant (the raid and mechanics) without a flashlight (the addon). A person can do it, but you’re probably going to have to use one if you can’t get the job done without.
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Not disagreeing there at all. The crux of what I think is being said here is if you really hate addons, it can be done without them, so don’t make excuses and be good enough to not need them. If you* still can’t, quit whining and use the flashlight (or ask someone to read the menu to you), don’t demand we turn the overhead lights on.
*Not necessarily you, I’m losing track of people in this thread tbh and haven’t read every post. I legitimately don’t know where you fall on the addon good/bad argument.
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It sounds like you may be one of those people, given you’ve called the difference “day and night” “need to haves”.
If your complaint is that Blizzard makes you take an extra five minutes to install the addons, OK, it is a tiny inconvenience, but it comes with the big advantage that you get choices in how you want that functionality. AH addons come in a range from simple to complex; there are multiple damage meters; at least two big boss mods; etc.
Personally I think Blizzard’s approach to UI and addons was dead-on and has stood the test of time better than any other game I can think of.
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Blizzard routinely incorporates useful and popular add-ons into their base UI, but the bottom line is they don’t want the casual player to be overwhelmed by options. The base UI is pretty decent and gets the job done. If you want to be better, people have done the work so that you can make your UI look virtually any way that you want and display information in such a way that suits you perfectly. I don’t know how you beat that.
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Imagine not being able to modify your UI. I shudder to think. 
And no assistant add-ons like DBM? I’d be lost, truly.
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I agree to an extent, but the truth is if you know your stuff you don’t need the addons. I see many streamers and youtubers that do vids on the game and their UI makes my OCD kick in, I could never see the point of having that much info on your screen, its just unnecessary. Maybe the raid leader, guild leader, etc should have the info to see if someone may need help on rotations.
M+ creates a bit of a need for this too, because there is so much you have to look out for.
I do wish there was less need for addons in some situations, but they’ve been a thing for quite some time now, don’t see them going away.
Gasps while sitting at 3/8 mythic
Gotta get those diver folley though! 
There are people who would fail without addons, but I don’t even think “many” is an accurate term.
Generally, when people screw up and blame it on something like “DBM didn’t work”, it’s not because they’re incapable of doing the mechanics without DBM, it’s because they’ve trained themselves to react to certain things (timers, DBM’s specific audio warnings) and those things didn’t show up (likely because they haven’t kept their addons up to date), so they missed it.
Take DBM away from them for a week or two and most people would adapt to watching for whatever it is they need to watch for that the game gives them. Which usually is a big yellow text warning or the bosses energy bar or personal debuffs or something.
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Yea they def should not make raids or any thing with the mind set that ppl have addons since not every one dose at that time they should just put it into base game if they dont want to change
IO prob should be removed and Meters should only show your dps/healing and give a % on how much you are doing vs the group but def should not show other ppl
ESO did a good job with that
Lol wut? What stacking mechanics. You tell it how to post, the same way you tell the regular UI how to post. Do you want to post one x100 or 100x1? Your choice. Don’t blame addons for what players do.
I’ll fix this “Raider io has made pugging extremely easy” Like you said, there has always been gatekeeping. And if you’re joining groups that expect a hardcarry, then instead of IO, they’d just expect you to be 444 ilvl. No difference. I’d much rather get judged and filtered based on my experience than based on my gear drop luck.
Glad you addressed this yourself, we can move on from this one.
Competitor MMOs that don’t have addons also don’t have players. Other games don’t have addons and are completely different games, overwatch D3, HotS. Sure, chocolate syrup might be tasty on some ice creams, but not ALL burritos have it. Wait, what.
The DBM point isn’t terribly off. I don’t care at all, but it has had to have done some weird things to encounter designs.
I learn from the meters though. I don’t care about the overall number I look at the breakdowns of how much %came from what. What are the buff up times etc. I can compare my buff up times to other people and get better.
Meters are not about the e peen. Not for me anyway.
As for io it’s the only thing that makes pugging do able. Without it I and many others like me would only do keys with friends making it harder for people who exclusively pug to get into groups because there would be less, let alone groups capable of killing bosses.
Totally agree with what you say. I can’t do all the mechanics without addons so I use them.
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